"God is not done with the business of revelation and creation but instead continues to have something to say and something yet to be accomplished in the very culture that isn't sure if God is done speaking," writes Keith R. Anderson. He is president of The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, author or many books, and co-author of Spiritual Mentoring.
Anderson laments that we seem to be losing our capacity for listening. He offers as evidence our need for shock and awe to get our attention and our inability to pay attention to the subtle or the slow-moving. As an antidote, he opens the door to our listening capacity by practical encouragement in listening consciously, mutually, wisely, here and now. One of the ways he suggests is to discover new places for prayer such as in buses or on trains.
To Anderson, Christian formation and discipleship means making the most of God-infused moments in wonder, in creation, in sounds surrounding us, in our stories and those of others, in heartbreak, in the prophetic voice, in the life of Jesus, and in the commons. The reflective passages at the end of each chapter amplify the spiritual practices used throughout this paperback.
A passage from The Cloud of Unknowing that Anderson quotes reminds us to return again and again to God's presence in this moment of listening: "Be attentive to time and the way you spend it. Nothing is more precious. This is evident when you recall that in one tiny moment heaven may be gained or lost. God, the master of time, never gives the future. He gives only the present, moment by moment."
